One Month Until Vegas! It’s NAB 2017

We’re about a month from the next big National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. This is my 27th consecutive visit to the NAB Show in Vegas. In early April I’ll have a blog all about going to Vegas (and NAB) and things to know. That piece will cover tips, advice and experiences that may be of help for newer attendees (and most certainly of huge benefit for first-time attendees). If you have any tips, stories or info, please email me soon with them!

For today’s blog, we’ll look at a few items related to the city and your trip out there for the NAB.

Vintage Las Vegas Here’s a great site if you love the history of Vegas and want to look in on the past. It’s well laid out and contains lot of cool pictures and a great search engine.

Almost Building The Enterprise from “Star Trek” Before “The Fremont Street Experience,” the domed ceiling, projections and show that came to downtown, “Old,” Vegas, one thought (in 1991/1992) was to build a full-scale U.S.S. Enterprise from the “Star Trek” TV series. It’s a cool story about one of the many “Las Vegas dreams” that never occurred (including my own dream of winning one of the progressive jackpots)! Here are two links. The first link with artist’s renderings, and a narrative on the second. Of course, only about seven years later the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton was developed.

The Future of Las Vegas This website looks at the future of Las Vegas as well as some other interesting information including maps, fact, hotel info and ratings, and even the weather.

Trade Searching and NAB Radio World, TV Technology and the NAB’s websites can give you some previews into what’s in store at the 2017 NAB Show. You’re reading this on the Radio World website. You can go to the dedicated NAB Show news page or to the Products page or go to RW’s TV sister magazine, TV Technology, and its NAB Show News page. To get info straight from the horse’s mouth, here is the NAB Show website.

Biggest Flops in Vegas History To “prepare myself for Vegas,” I’ve been watching movies like “Bugsy,” “Vegas Vacation,” “Casino” and others (there’s plenty). Vegas doesn’t seem to take much interest in preserving their past history when it comes to buildings and casinos, but they’ve had some interesting ideas out there. One was actually to build that “life-sized” Enterprise space ship, which, as you know from above, never happened. If you follow the history of Las Vegas and the initial building of Bugsy Segal’s dream casino, you know that even it didn’t necessarily appear to be a good idea — at least at first! It was a “bust” when it initially opened ... but in time, with the addition of other (often Mob-run or financed) casinos. “The Strip,” which is what most people associate with Las Vegas, took off.

When Howard Hughes came in, things changed forever. Here’s a link to some other ideas that didn’t “work out so well” for Las Vegas.

Interesting fact — “The Las Vegas Strip” is not actually in Las Vegas but rather in Paradise and Winchester, two of the several small unincorporated towns that make up a large portion of the Las Vegas metro area.

And finally... For the full time machine, retro treatment, check out In Old Las Vegas.

If you stumble across a good or unusual web site that might be of interest, please don’t hesitate to send me the link and any info you might have about it. Also, with the upcoming “heading to Las Vegas for NAB” edition, if you have any tips or stories to share, please send them my way. My email address is dan_slentz@yahoo.com.